{"id":2461,"date":"2017-05-29T14:43:32","date_gmt":"2017-05-29T20:43:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/?p=2461"},"modified":"2021-01-06T15:39:59","modified_gmt":"2021-01-06T21:39:59","slug":"media-watch-13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/pronouns\/media-watch-13\/","title":{"rendered":"Media Watch: Word Choice, Articles, Pronouns"},"content":{"rendered":"

These articles used to be a lot more fun to write, but that was before newspapers and magazines went on life support. Mainly, we do \u201cMedia Watch\u201d for the copy editors, those unsung word nerds who make journalists watch what they say and how they say it.<\/span><\/p>\n

When companies struggle, they downsize, so we shudder to think of all the fine copy editors who have been cast aside as expendable. If we\u2019ve hired capable writers, the corporate thinking might go, they\u2019ll do OK without some finicky scold looking over their shoulders. Fine, but as that old song says, you don\u2019t know what you\u2019ve lost till it\u2019s gone \u2026<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u201cSchmidt described her as \u2018very calm\u2014nonplussed\u2019 after the senator met with her.\u201d<\/p>\n

No doubt Schmidt meant that the woman was unruffled, but nonplussed<\/em> means confused.
\n
\n\u2022 \u201cThere was nothing longer then this\u201d (should be \u201cthan\u201d).<\/span><\/p>\n

This blunder would be embarrassing anywhere, but it cropped up in the daily word puzzle known as Jumble, a game whose very existence depends upon its spelling accuracy.<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u201cA unusual twist in Senate process.\u201d
\n\u2022 \u201cAn very unfortunately named document.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the principles of English that Americans once learned in first grade was when to use the article a<\/em> (before consonants: a man<\/em>) and when to use an<\/em> (before vowels and vowel sounds: an owl<\/em>, an honor<\/em>). But this basic rule has become a mystery to many of us, including otherwise intelligent public figures who say things like \u201ca international effort.\u201d<\/p>\n

This thing has become an epidemic. But here\u2019s one that may deserve the benefit of the doubt: \u201cHer friends plan to use an Ouija board.\u201d The author is probably too young to know that even though Ouija<\/em> starts with a vowel, it\u2019s pronounced \u201cwee-ja,\u201d so it takes a<\/em>, not an<\/em>.
\n
\n\u2022 \u201cThe dirty little secret about being an artist is that you\u2019re still a human being. That means he or she has the same emotions as everyone else.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s not pretty. The writer wanted to avoid using they<\/em> with the singular \u201can artist,\u201d a laudable goal, but he lost control of his sentence. Why did he go from \u201cyou\u201d to \u201che or she\u201d? Just change the second sentence to, \u201cThat means you have the same emotions as everyone else.\u201d Better yet, making \u201cartist\u201d plural avoids the whole mess: \u201cThe dirty little secret about artists is that they\u2019re still human beings. That means they have the same emotions as everyone else.\u201d
\n
\nWe suspect that the laying off of gifted copy editors at newspapers and magazines is behind most if not all of these blunders. Even good writers falter under the pressure of deadlines\u2014a venerable critic recently wrote, \u201cWe live in a time where every musical genre can be labeled world music.\u201d On such occasions, writers need someone they can depend on to change that ill-advised \u201cwhere\u201d to \u201cwhen.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

These articles used to be a lot more fun to write, but that was before newspapers and magazines went on life support. Mainly, we do \u201cMedia Watch\u201d for the copy editors, those unsung word nerds who make journalists watch what they say and how they say it. When companies struggle, they downsize, so we shudder […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,12,8,51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-definitions","category-effective-writing","category-pronouns","category-vocabulary"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2461"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2461\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}